In IFTTT terms the This is a Trigger, the That is an Action. A Trigger with an Action is known as a Recipe. The sources of Triggers and Actions (like Twitter, or Instagram) are known as Channels. There are currently 164 Channels.

Imagine a service on the internet and it’s likely that there will be a channel for it which is likely to have a set of triggers then start thinking about what you could do:

Every time I go to the gym I could post on Facebook.

Every time I leave the office I could email my wife.

Every Saturday I could send an email of the day’s weather.

Every time TIME.com posts in a particular section I could get IFTTT to phone me and tell me.

Every time it’s sunset I could turn on my Philips Hue lights (not that I have any).

I only use a few channels, but that’s all I need for now. It’s amazing what you can do with a few recipes:

IFI favourite a tweetTHENcreate a note in Evernote with the tweet details in it.

IFI write a tweetTHENcreate a note in Evernote with the tweet details in it.

IFI post a picture to InstagramTHENcreate a note in Evernote with the picture in it.

IFI write a Blog postTHENcreate a note in Evernote with the text and picture in it.

IFI mark a blog as Save for Later in FeedlyTHENcreate a link note in Evernote with a subset of the post text in.

IFI arrive at the gymTHENamend a log note in Evernote with time and date.

My recipes all use Evernote as the target; it’s the place that I use to record my online life, and some of my physical life too, but that’s a post for another day.

If you are wondering how you say IFTTT then the advice from the makers is to image GIFT without a G.